


Dreaming of the Future

by flitterflutterfly



Series: Tumblr Prompts [19]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Good Dursley Family, Seer Harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 15:50:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5462270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flitterflutterfly/pseuds/flitterflutterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look into how Harry being a seer might change his relationship with the Dursleys.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreaming of the Future

**Author's Note:**

> history1304 asked for seer Harry on my tumblr and I wrote this. I am currently working on an alternate version of this story which I'll link here as soon as I put up the first chapter. The alt. version will be HP/TMR and start much later than this story does (for the most part).

Harry Potter was a peculiar boy. See, ever since he’d been hit with the killing curse, he’d been able to see the future. As a young child, this hadn’t mattered much—those strange dreams he got were quickly forgotten by his still-growing mind. But as he got older, he began to realize that those dreams he sometimes had were more than just strange tricks of sleep.

In a different world, Harry would have grown up ignorant of magic—with relatives convinced the best way to go about life was to beat the freakishness out of him. But by the time Harry was seven, he was smart enough to realize this (or maybe the dreams were influencing his young mind) and so he did what any smart person would do—he changed the future.

“Mr. Brunner is allergic to tree nuts,” Harry told his aunt and uncle as he helped his aunt set the table. If his dreams were true, then he’d be forced to start cooking all their meals in a couple years, but at seven he was still to young to do much more than carry plates from the counter to the table and wash the dishes after.

“What are you talking about, boy?” Uncle Vernon asked.

“Mr. Brunner,” Harry repeated. “Aunt Petunia’s gonna make pecan pie when he and his wife come next week. But he’s allergic to pecans and he’ll have a reaction when you shake his hand after dinner and you won’t get the deal.”

The two adult Dursleys stared at him. Dudley was too young, and too stupid, to understand or care about what was being said so he just dug into his dinner with relish.

“But Mrs. Brunner loved the casserole you made, Aunt Petunia. You were going to give her the recipe but then Mr. Brunner almost died so you didn’t.”

Harry got thrown into his cupboard without dinner for his trouble, but the next week he overheard Petunia ask the Brunners if they had any allergies.

“Oh, Ben is terribly allergic to tree nuts,” Mrs. Brunner said. “This casserole is lovely, Petunia. You simply must give me the recipe.”

Vernon got the deal and when he let Harry out of the cupboard, there was a speculative gleam in his eyes. For while Vernon hated magic and freakishness, he was also a very pragmatic man. Until then, he hadn’t thought magic could do anything good _for him_. But now…

“Can you do that again?” Uncle Vernon asked.

“Yes,” Harry replied, because something in him said he must. “Will you let me?”

By the time Harry was eleven, he’d been comfortably living in the second bedroom for years. He got birthday and Christmas presents—never as much as Dudley but useful things like new clothes and a comfortable bed. Uncle Vernon had learned that sometimes the clarity of Harry’s visions only became clear in the moment of the event, so having him around when guests was over became practical. Harry didn’t get a vision for every meeting, and he couldn’t control that, but he often got a vision when an important thing was going to happen and so, with his help, Vernon was promoted three times in three years. 

His aunt and uncle still never mentioned the word magic, even though Harry dreamed of Hogwarts and of classes and, sometimes, of war. They never talked about Harry’s dreams around Dudley either and the one time Harry was foolish enough to bring it up, he was beaten for it. It was the last time he was stupid enough to get beaten, though, and at least Vernon stopped encouraging Dudley and his friends to go Harry Hunting. They’d never be close cousins, but they could sit at the same dinner table now without nasty remarks.

At primary school, Harry was allowed to get good scores because his aunt and uncle figured his abilities were helping him cheat to get better than Dudley but they didn’t want to have him stop dreaming because of all they’d lose. As a result, Harry wasn’t seen as the delinquent and the Dursleys were surprised to note that the neighborhood saw better of them for being so good as to raise such a polite young boy when he was only their nephew. In a lovely positive reinforcement loop, this led to the Dursleys being more willing to brag about Harry’s accomplishments—though never in any way that would make Dudley seem lesser. Dudley became the athletic child, the one who did best on the sports teams, and Harry became the smart boy who the teachers loved. The combination gave the Dursleys much more clout in the neighborhood.

So Harry continued to get new clothes and books and notebooks as presents, while Dudley got all the cool toys. But Harry didn’t mind, because in his dreams he saw flying broomsticks and magical fire and he knew he was due much more than Dudley by the end.

Thus things went, comfortable if not the best childhood, until Harry got his letter to Hogwarts in the mail.

Harry waited until he could talk to Vernon and Petunia alone. They had their routine down and Dudley spent enough time out of the house with his friends to make it easy. 

“What is it, boy?” Vernon said. He’d never once called him Harry except in front of guests, but at least he no longer called him Freak.

Harry put his Hogwarts letter on the table. He watched Vernon begin to turn purple, and then Petunia laid a hand on his arm.

“You already know, don’t you?” she said.

Harry nodded. “I’ve dreamed of it. I want to go and I know my parents left me money to pay for the schooling so you don’t have to.” He dreamed of a vault piled high with gold, but he wasn’t going to tell the Dursleys that. He was a smart eleven-year-old.

“Surely you’d rather go to Stonewall with your, uh, friends,” Vernon said. He was still red in the face, but at least he was trying to be political about this.

“Vernon,” Petunia said. “If we try to stop him from going, _they_ might just take him away.”

Harry didn’t know who they were, though he could guess based on a couple of faces that kept popping up in his dreams. Still, if Petunia was going to be on his side then he wasn’t going to argue.

Harry knew what his uncle was worried about, so he quickly reassured him. “If you get me an owl,” the pretty white owl he saw in his dreams, “then I can write you letters and tell you about my dreams. I’ll come home for the hols too, if you want. And I’ll still be here all summer.”

Vernon sighed. “Very well. You’ll write immediately after you dream about anything important, boy.” Harry knew he meant important to Vernon, because Harry had already dreamt important things about Hogwarts and he hadn’t even arrived yet. He still wasn’t sure if that large, ugly creature he’d seen was a bad guy… or maybe a professor. It was a school of magic, after all, and the dreams never gave as much information as he’d like.

“I promise, Uncle Vernon.”

“We’ll tell the neighbors you got a scholarship to a boarding school outside London,” Petunia said, thinking aloud. “A prestigious one, I think. That you attribute all your success to our charity in taking you in when your parents died.”

Vernon nodded, catching on. “You’ll get an owl for your birthday. A strange pet, but they symbolize wisdom, right? Neighbors won’t care much if they see it flying around then.”

“I’ll need to go shopping for school supplies. There’s a place… a lot of, um, shops. I’ve seen it, but I don’t know where it is.”

“I do,” Petunia said, though it looked like it hurt her to say. “Diagon Alley. I suppose I can take you.”

“You’re a doll, pet,” Vernon said

“If you just drop me off, I can probably manage on my own,” Harry said, not wanting Aunt Petunia to see his trust vault. “Or tell me where it is and give me money for the tube.”

“Even better,” Vernon said. “Now that’s enough talking of freakishness. We’ve got another couple months with you, boy. Better earn your keep.”  
  
“Yes, Uncle Vernon,” Harry said, knowing what that meant. He’d been sent out to the garden to exhaust himself so he’d be able to take a nap in the middle of the day and still fall asleep at the reasonable hour that night. The more times for dreaming, the better in Vernon’s mind. His sleep schedule was all messed up, but he’d just have to figure out a way to straighten it out at school so he wouldn’t fall asleep in class.

Harry wrote his reply that he’d be going to Hogwarts, thanks, and sent it off with the tawny owl waiting outside the front door. And then he headed up to his room to change into yard clothes.

During his afternoon nap, Harry dreamt there was a blond-haired boy on a stool next to him. The boy sneered and introduced himself, before asking who he was. In his dream, Harry left without answering. Harry’s dreams didn’t always stay with his dream self—sometimes his dream self wasn’t even there—so he was able to see the look on the blond’s face while his dream self’s back was turned. He’d offended the blond-haired, he could see that clearly.

Harry woke and rubbed his scar. It always burned a little after he _saw_ something, which was how he knew it was a special dream instead of a regular one like he sometimes got. He reminded himself to try not to offend the blond-haired boy—he wasn’t quite sure who he was, but Harry knew better than to make enemies when he could help it. 

With that, Harry rolled over and went back to sleep.


End file.
